Before we get started with lists and such, here are some quick notes on last year and this year, just to put things in perspective.

2011 IN HINDSIGHT
-InThyFlesh's Claustrophobia should have made the list. It grew on me considerably after the start of the year. It was a top 25 album, easily.
-Mournful Congregation's The Book of Kings should have been in my top 10.
-SORNE's House of Stone should have been higher.
-Maybeshewill's I Was Here For a Moment, Then I Was Gone, Adele's 21, and Inquisition's Ominous Doctrines Of The Perpetual Mystical Macrocosm were misses and should have made the list.
-Top 5 would be unchanged.

2012 BRIEF SUMMARY
-Overall a slightly weaker year than 2011
-More in the way of black and doom metal
-Most disappointing releases: Sigur Rós and Alcest. Les voyages de l'âme in particular, lacking the passion and heart that made its predecessor one of the most emotional albums I've ever heard.

I really don't know how I'm going to go about doing the list this year, as I won't have time to start diving into long blurbs until after exams. I'm also in the process of putting together a vintage stereo system, and restoring some old equipment, which is taking up my time and energy as well. But the routine this time around hopefully will be similar to last year's. I'm not sure how many albums will be on this list yet.

A Pitchfork reviewer wrote last year "I've been making these sorts of lists long enough to know they're not an exact science, and they don't please everyone. In the end, they're snapshots that remind the individual stressing out over said list about what was important to them within a particular time span." I can't stress this enough. I know we're all very list obsessive here, and we put waaay more time into this than we probably should, but in the end it's just a list accentuating what we love.

I tried to be a bit more lyric conscious this year than in years past.

As you read, please don't hesitate to agree, approve, assess, share your thoughts, criticize, berate, etc. anything I post here. Just try not to be too terribly ugly about it.

I'm expecting to see quite a few albums on this list that would have ened up on mine had I known about them before seeing them here. So in other words in expecting to find cool shit I was too lazy to find myself.

It's not a terrible record, I really, really enjoy it, but it definitely seems a little more rushed and by-the-numbers than Ecailles De Lune and Souvenirs d'un autre monde. There are some great moments like the first track, Là où Naissent les Couleurs Nouvelles, and Beings of Light, but overall the album doesn't really feel like it encompasses one thing like the other two do. It seems like a summary of what Alcest has been and some new, more polished sounds. Definitely still Top 15 for this kid.